‘You are going to meet Jimmy at the prison gates, aren’t you? He can’t walk out of that godforsaken place and travel all the way home, alone. It’s three buses.’ Annie’s voice had taken on a note of pleading.

Callum thrust his hands into his pockets. ‘Mam, if I don’t meet him, he could be back inside before he got home! Of course I am. That’s why I’m going to get as many hours in as I can between now and then – and that’s the last day I’m giving to Jimmy.’

Annie frowned and pushed her glasses up her nose. ‘Well, it’s not his fault, is it?’ she said. ‘Ever since the priest was murdered, the police have not been away from these streets. They’ve put that horror of a bobby, Frank the Skank, on the docks since the sergeant married Miss Devlin and he’s always walking up and down past our window.’

‘Mam, if Jimmy stays clean he’s nothing to fear from Frank the Skank. Jimmy was caught breaking into a betting shop in the Dingle. And don’t forget poor Mary – he broke that girl’s heart. Will he be doing the right thing there?’

Annie pushed Callum to one side as she walked past him into the kitchen. ‘Not if I have anything to do with it. He was far too good for the likes of that girl. Our Jimmy deserves better than that.’

Now it was Callum’s turn to feel angry. He carried a torch for Mary himself, but knowing she had fallen for his brother meant he couldn’t do anything about it. To him, Mary was perfect. Annie could see she had upset her son, and whilst Jimmy was her favourite, Callum was the dependable son she needed to help pay the rent and the bills.

‘Come on now, Callum, don’t be like that. I’ll fry a few rashers before you go, put something in your stomach; you can’t do a day’s work on an empty belly. You still have time to eat and be at the front of the pen.’

Callum followed his mammy into the kitchen. He had vowed that he would never again see the inside of a cell and resented having to take the day off work and three buses to meet Jimmy. His almost-impossible goal on the day he collected Jimmy would be to persuade his brother to become a reformed character and that a life of crime really didn’t pay as well as the docks.

*

Eric walked to the cart and lifted Mrs Trott’s milk from the crate. He noticed the net curtain across the road, which had been in place when he arrived, was now balanced on the top of an ornament. He placed his empty cup into one of Maggie’s outstretched hands and the bottle of milk in the other.